"Give me the envelope, the one with the little roses on the edges."

Sam gives her the envelope, the one she requested, the one with the little roses on the edges. She takes it and stuffs a check for $21.69 inside, along with a note in her own handwriting which says Don't ever call me again. She licks the sticky part of the envelope and asks Sam to take it to the mailbox, but he feels sick to his stomach for some reason, so she takes the envelope to the mailbox and raises the bright red flag then goes back inside and sits at the kitchen table beside Sam, who by now has taken some pink liquid for his stomach.

She slumps in the chair as she sits at the table. She and Sam don't say anything, so nothing really happens between them for a long time. The clock on the wall, along with a couple of birds chirping just outside the window above the sink, make the only sounds.

Suddenly she sits upright, as if she's just remembered the answer to an age-old question, and says to Sam, she says, "Hey! Did you know that Ronnie got a new car the other day?"

Sam holds his stomach with one hand and shakes his head. He really believes that holding his stomach with one of his hands will help make the pain go away.

Her eyes are still wide as she says, "Yeah! He went and got himself one of them roadster things, you know the kind that's got them shiny wheels and all? Yeah, he got himself one and he says that thing'll go zero to sixty in three point eight seconds! You think he's lying?"

Sam doesn't say anything; Sam just sits there and stares and holds his stomach, trying not to think of anything but the beautiful pink liquid draining down his esophagus and flooding his burning, cramping stomach.

She stops talking about Ronnie and the new car and gets up from the table and goes to the refrigerator. It's almost empty, except for a few cans of soda, a jar of mayonnaise, some cheese still wrapped in original plastic. "There ain't nothing to eat in here!" she says, and Sam throws up all over the kitchen table. She turns around and says "Gross!" then grabs some paper towels and cleans it up. "That's okay," she says to Sam. "No use crying over spilled stomach acid. Come on, let's go to a movie, maybe it'll make you feel better."

Sam nods and gets up. He never figures out what made him sick in the first place. Truth is, he doesn't like Ronnie all that much, that new car of his sickening in and of itself. But what does Sam know?

Copyright © 2004
Jeffrey S. Callico